NGINX configuration for Mac OS X

default

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  localhost;

    #access_log  logs/host.access.log  main;

    location / {
        root   html;
        index  index.html index.htm;
    }

    #error_page  404              /404.html;

    # redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html
    #
    error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
    location = /50x.html {
        root   html;
    }
}

default-ssl

server {
    listen       443;
    server_name  localhost;

    ssl                  on;
    ssl_certificate      server.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key  server.key;

    ssl_session_timeout  5m;

    ssl_protocols  SSLv2 SSLv3 TLSv1;
    ssl_ciphers  HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers   on;

    location / {
        root   html;
        index  index.html index.htm;
    }
}

MichelAnge

server {
    listen       8080;
    server_name  localhost;

    root /var/www/MichelAnge;
    index index.html index.html;

    #error_page  404              /404.html;

    # redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html
    #
    error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
    location = /50x.html {
        root   html;
    }
}

NGINX.md

NGINX

Set up nginx on Mac OS

Installation

Install nginx with Homebrew:

brew install nginx

Start nginx as a brew service:

brew services start nginx

nginx will now run in background and seemlessly start with your Mac.

Head up to http://localhost:8080, you should see the default nginx start page.

Configuration

this content was greatly inspired by this gist

Create the sites-enabled and sites-available directories

mkdir -p /usr/local/etc/nginx/sites-{enabled,available}

Tell nginx to use all servers defined in the sites-enabled directory by adding this line to nginx.conf

http {
    # a lot of default content set by nginx
    ...

    # add the following line
    include sites-enabled/*;
}

Create 2 default configurations, default and default-ssl:

1. create sites-available/default and paste the default file content (sourced from here)
2. create sites-available/default-ssl and paste the default-ssl file content (sourced from here)

Copy the default nginx settings into a new server block for your new site:

cd /usr/local/etc/nginx
cp sites-available/default.conf sites-available/my-new-site

⚠️ do not use the .conf extension for

Change the port for your new server block. Make sure to choose a non-root port; root ports are ranging from 1 to 1024. It's a good practice since it will allow your server to run without using sudo.

# in my-new-site
...
listen       8080;
...

Enable your new server by symlinking the conf in sites-available/ to sites-enabled/. This "symlink" convention is basically how all nginx configuration works. Enable/disable servers at your wish. It's pretty simple.

ln -s sites-enabled/ sites-available/my-new-site

Head up to your new site http://localhost:8080, you should see nginx starting page ☕️

Running

Now you need to point your server to where your web content actually is. In your new server block, define the location of your root html file

server {
    ...
    location / {
        root   /ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/YOUR/WEB_RESOURCES;
        index  index.html index.htm;
    }
    ...
}